252 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



object — the thinker and the object of thought stand 

 forever apart. 



Mr. Spencer says: "Nevertheless, it may be as 

 well to say here, once for all, that were we compelled 

 to choose between the alternatives of translating men- 

 tal phenomena into physical phenomena, or of trans- 

 lating physical phenomena into mental phenomena, 

 the latter alternative would seem the more acceptable 

 of the two."* 



Matter and mind cannot be identified with each 

 other. Mind cannot spring from matter nor be 

 explained in material terms. 



Of course, I do not deny that there are intimate 

 and definite relations between mental phenomena and 

 the nervous system, but I do deny that matter alone 

 or matter plus motion constitutes mind. 



Mr. Spencer admits that " a unit of feeling has 

 nothing in common with a unit of motion," so that 

 all effort to identify mind as matter falls short of the 

 truth. They stand at the two poles of thought. 



The theory of evolution fails to account for tne 

 origin of even simple units of feeling; it fails to 

 prove its assumption that the various widely-different 

 mental powers are composed of simple units of feel- 

 ing that are "fundamentally of one kind;" it fails to 

 show how the higher mental powers could have been 

 evolved from the lower powers which must have pre- 

 ceded them, and, above all, it fails to explain the evo- 

 lution of the moral faculty in man. 



Spencer claims that the "faculties of moral intui- 

 tion " have been produced by " experiences of util- 

 ity." I need not say that right and useful are not 

 equivalent words. How widely different might be 

 conduct when determined by the word ought, on the 

 one hand, or by the word useful, on the other ! It 

 * Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, p. 159. 



